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Friday, April 15, 2016

Stockyards Brewing Co Opens Today!

Posted by
Jay Aber

Stockyards Brewing Co opens in the West Bottoms today.

Seems like it's been a while since a new brewery opened in KC. Ok, so Crane only actually opened about 4 months ago, but at the pace we've been having new breweries open in the area, 4 months seems like a long time to me! Well, you have to wait no longer--Stockyards Brewing Co is opening down in the West Bottoms today!

If you're not familiar with the brewery, they're going to occupy about half of the former Golden Ox space right next to the Livestock Exchange building. This little area right up the street from Kemper Arena has really taking off in the last couple of years. There are a number of restaurants and bars including Voltaire, Genessee Royale Bistro, and the Amigoni Urban Winery among others. It's a cool backwaters of KC, and I highly recommend a visit. And now with a new brewery, you have no excuse not to go down!

The brewery is starting off with their Hefeweizen, Golden Alt, and Saison. They'll soon follow this up with a black IPA. They're also going to have a full service bar and a selection of cold cuts (a la Bier Kitchen), but they won't have all of this up and running right away. If you want to learn more details about the brewery & the folks behind it, friend of the blog Pete Dulin did a great writeup on them and an interview with the founders for Feast Magazine.

As much as it's becoming an everyday occurrence in KC for another brewery to open, you can't downplay the difficulty involved in making it happen or the dedication and sweat the founders have to put into a place like this to get it open. So many congratulations to the folks who made this happen, and best of luck!

Also, a plea for civility--please understand that the beer quality might not be at 100% on the first day of service. While I haven't tried their beer yet, and have no idea what it's going to be like, I see this scenario play out over and over and over again: Beer Snob X goes to a brewery on opening day. X tries the beer, is unimpressed, and promptly goes on the internet to rail the brewery on the internet and vows to never go again. I'm frankly just tired of seeing these ridiculous reviews.

Please realize that there are a lot of difficulties with brewing on a brand new system that are primarily out of the brewer's control. So please, CUT THEM SOME SLACK and if you don't think the beer is good, come back in a month or two once they've got the kinks worked out and try it again. If the beer remains poor quality, by all means rage away on the internet if it makes you feel better. Otherwise, maybe think about not saying anything at all if you don't have anything nice to say.